


riz gukgak goes outside (and thinks about his Feelings): a study in coerced self-care

by sulfuric



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Introspection, M/M, Walks In The Woods, also a rat is there, normal teenager stuff, using a fake case to get your best friend to go on a walk with you, using a walk with your best friend to analyze your feelings for said friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28304877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulfuric/pseuds/sulfuric
Summary: In the apparent lull of the beginning of sophmore year, Riz’s friends make sure to keep him occupied with potential clues (read: forcing him to sleep, eat, and go outside under the guise of “investigation”) so that he doesn’t lose it. With homecoming’s deep cover caper under his belt, a crisp October morning brings Riz's most important, high stakes mission yet: going on a lovely Autumn walk with Edgar the rat and his very best friend, Fabian.The case is surely contrived, but Riz might just end up doing some investigating while he’s there, anyway.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	riz gukgak goes outside (and thinks about his Feelings): a study in coerced self-care

**Author's Note:**

> for the lovely and incredibly talented [rathonk](https://rathonk.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for the d20 exchange! i hope you enjoy hehe

Riz knows that the Far Haven Woods are in fact, _not_ the same thing as the Forest of the Nightmare King—he checked the morning after prom, thoroughness and all—but he decides to let Fabian think he believes it could be pertinent to the case when he asks Riz to go on a walk in the morning. 

It starts with Zayn asking him to take care of Edgar over the weekend, but really, it starts a couple months before that, in the Summer.

Riz had figured out that his friends were conning him about three days after they started. 

It was the start of Summer, and the Kalvaxus Kaper had been resolved. All the missing girls—including Penny, ex-babysitter but current _friend,_ thank you very much—had been found and the local chapter of the Harvestmen had been all but wiped from Elmville. The school was saved, Gorgug found his dad, and Riz and his mom didn’t have to do groceries for like two weeks. Yadda yadda we saved the town, celebration and such.

To his merit, Riz lasted a good whole four or five hours before that anxious hum settled into his bones again. He and the rest of the bad kids went to Basrar’s, an unexpected post-prom stop that felt so deliciously high school that the high of the laughter and the sugar kept his (un)licensed detective senses at bay until he went home that night, Fig giggling beside him the entire bus ride home to the Strongtower Luxury Apartments. After they said goodnight—and after Fig had tried and failed to convince him to climb up inside the flap of the vending machine to grab her some chips—Riz locked the apartment door behind him, thought about how he should probably install another lock (just to be safe), peeked into his mom’s room (also just to be safe), and typed _Nightmare King Crown_ into fantasy google on his crystal. 

Fantasy google was wholly unhelpful, of course, and the spiral that ensued without the soft obligation of school to keep him on a somewhat normal sleep schedule was, well. A spiral. Shortly before Fig and Gorgug went on tour, his friends started… helping him. With the case. Which is—it’s a generous label, _helping,_ considering that it just seems to be a rotating schedule of one bad kid a week texting him and saying something along the lines of, _I think I found a clue!_ with no further explanation until he agreed to go meet them somewhere. Usually, that somewhere involved food, or fresh air, or socially-mandated sleeping hours. 

He was annoyed, at first. A little offended. If they were under the impression that Riz really and truly thought the crown of the Nightmare King could be at the pretzel stand in the Elm Valley Mall, then they really didn’t take him as seriously as he thought they did. Also, he’s fifteen, now—he doesn’t need a babysitter (and if he did, his old one isn’t even missing anymore!), let alone five. He was annoyed, and offended, but then… well, it was sort of fun spending his Summer hanging out with his friends. Even if they didn’t have a real case to solve—well, they did, but most of them had taken on Kristen’s _don’t worry about it, man_ attitude in one way or another, bar Fabian whose lamenting about getting his kisses in again was as close to case-adjacent as it seemed Riz was gonna get—it was enough to _pretend_ they were working on something when they were crammed into a booth at Basrar’s, or bowling gutterballs at the dinky bowling alley by the train station, or passing around bags of candy on the floor of Adaine’s room in Jawbone and Tracker’s apartment.

 _The Search for the Crown of the Nightmare King,_ and its lesser known, lower stakes sister case: _The Mystery of the Outside of School-Hours/Adventuring Party Friendship Group._ That one, unlike its elusive older brother, has clues landing in Riz’s lap like prayer chain notifications. 

(He’d asked Kristen how to turn off the notification sound for those, one time while he was helping her thrift— _you know, Riz, maybe someone mistakenly took the crown from Augefort’s office and donated it to this fantasy Goodwill. You never know—_ but apparently it’s impossible.)

The clues were landing in his lap, without him even really having to look for them: Adaine offering to come over and sort through all his files with him; Gorgug calling him in the middle of the night and softly suggesting that maybe he would find the Nightmare King in his nightmares if he went to sleep; Fig taking him to the Black Pit to ask around if anyone knows anything about the crown. He’s not sure if they’re, like, making fun of him in some roundabout way just for their own amusement (unlikely, evidence doesn’t suggest this is the case) or if they’re simply just utilizing his strengths (albeit very transparently) to to spend time with him and make sure he’s taking care of himself. Because they’re his friends, and they like him. 

Lately, he’s been leaning toward the latter.

Which is why he doesn’t question it when Fabian texts him on the first Friday night of October, _THE BALL!!!! go to sleep now. urgent development think my hot girlfriend (aelwyn) might be in the far haven woods we have to go explore them tomorrow morning. zayn’s gross little rat will help us. ill have cathilda fix us breakfast so that we have strength on our journey. IMPORTANT DO NOT IGNORE!!!!!1!_

The next morning finds him sat in Seacaster manor—one of those pointless little rooms that rich people have scattered all over their houses for, like, sitting down; it seems that every time Fabian has him over he chooses a new one, no repeats yet—with a plate of cantaloupe balanced gingerly on his lap, Fabian pointedly sat as far as possible from him and grimacing at Edgar, perched on Riz’s shoulder.

“Ugh, the ball, do you really have to bring that disgusting little thing inside my _house?”_

Just to be annoying, he picks up a piece of cantaloupe and gives it to Edgar to nibble on as he speaks. “Zayn asked me to take care of him. I can’t just, like, park him at the door—” Fabian seems wistful at this idea— “and besides, he’s cute.” 

Fabian scoffs again and chooses not to comment further. He shouldn’t be surprised that this is happening. One, he said Edgar would be of help in his text last night, and two, he was _there_ when Zayn asked Riz to take care of him for the weekend. 

(“He liked you so much last time, when I was dead,” Zayn had said earlier that week, Edgar squeaking appreciatively as if in agreement from where he sat on Zayn’s backpack. “It would be a huge help. He doesn’t do too well with loud noises, and the ethereal dance music festival is in Bastion City this weekend. Lemon Demon’s gonna be there!”

Riz had smiled politely at Zayn’s obvious excitement for Lemon Demon—a band, probably, but maybe also an actual demon? Lemon coloured? Lemon flavoured? He made a note to ask Fig about it later. 

“Yes, Zayn, I will take care of your rat for you.” 

At that point, Gorgug and Zelda had appeared further down the hall and shouted in tandem, _“Lemon Demon!”_ Riz had just caught the knowing look—raised eyebrows, pursed lips, the slightest smile—shared between Fabian and Kristen as Zayn blushed in response.

Well, as much as a ghost can blush, anyway.)

Fabian finally shakes his head and says, “He is _not_ cute,” but he’s smiling, anyway. 

Riz ignores the sudden, short hammering in his chest and stands, collecting his and Fabian’s plates. “Should we get going then?”

“The ball, please, Cathilda will get those.” He waves Riz off just as Cathilda, right on her cheery little cue, comes into the room.

“Oh, Master Fabian is right, don’t you worry your little—oh my, who do we have here?” Cathilda lets out a little gasp and leans down to make googly eyes at Edgar as she slips the plates out of Riz’s hands nearly undetected, even to him. 

_Cathilda rogue???_ The thought rings out distantly as he scrambles for a response, still distracted from Fabians fond, private little smile fifteen seconds back. “Uh, uh—this is Edgar, our friend’s rat. I’m taking care of him for the weekend.”

“Yes, he’s very gross and little and I hate him so much. We’re going to the woods to find my girlfriend.” Fabian is standing now, arms crossed.

Cathilda straightens up and raises a single eyebrow, gathering the plates into a tray and smiling politely in that way that adults do when they hear teenagers say something that is evidently a can of worms they don’t care to open. Riz recognizes the look well. “Isn’t that nice, Master Fabian.”

“Oh, how it is,” he drawls as he slides his jacket on, “but we _must_ be leaving now, thank you so much Cathilda, _byyeeee!”_ And then Riz is scrambling to grab his briefcase as Fabian takes his arm and drags him out the front doors of the Seacaster Manor, into the rest of the day.

Riz is standing in the school parking lot, considering points of access to the roof, when Fabian finally leaves the Hangman in a huff of annoyance, rolling his eyes as he mutters, “I’m _not_ leaving them in the woods, Hangman.” Riz can tell at this point that Fabian probably meant to say it in his head, through telepathy—eyes focused on the ground, not making a point to enunciate like he usually does, back turned to the Hangman itself—there are some things, at least, that are not a mystery to Riz.

Edgar squeaks to acknowledge Fabian as he catches up to Riz, the two of them falling into step over the grounds leading away from the school and towards the woods. The grass is dewy still, short blades sticking to the tops of Riz’s shoes as he speedwalks to keep up with Fabian—who is, at the moment, still going through a journey in microexpressions as he shoves his hands into his pockets, the Hangman surely still bickering on in his mind as it tends to do.

That bike never liked Riz too much. 

He’s about to make a joke about it when a breeze comes tumbling at them head-on, bringing the smell of dead leaves and a chill so pervasive that Riz can feel goosebumps prickling on his skin underneath even the warm, thick tweed of his vest. _How the hell is it Fall already?_ He must have missed those last few warm days that stretch two weeks ago when he and Adaine had camped out in his mom’s study for the better part of a week, pouring through library books about past monarchies and crowns and dream magic. Fruitless, of course, unless you count the thing about—

Oh, and now Edgar is scrambling up the side of his face and yanking on his hair, squeaking desperately. Fantastic.

“Edgar, Edgar, Ed—please don’t— _ow!”_ he pleads to no avail as Edgar knocks off his hat, settling into his hair and sighing. 

“I told you it was a bad idea to take him.” Fabian doesn’t look back as he scolds matter-of-factly, “I know Adaine likes him—and Gorgug too, _obviously—_ but I still don’t trust that goth kid. Or is he emo? Is there a difference? You’re a nerd, you would probably—” he stops abruptly, Riz’s mind immediately sounding the alarms with _he’s been shot he’s been poisoned he was somehow right the next clue to the case is here and they found us and they’re gonna kill us_ before he can even look up from where he’s crouched to collect his hat from the ground. His hand goes immediately to his arquebus and when his eyes dart up again he sees Fabian standing stock-still, body rigid. He searches for the spreading of blood on his clothes but can’t find it—only a blank, dopey expression painting Fabian’s face, indecipherable. Riz is about to roll insight, or a medicine check, or _something,_ but then— 

“Well, aren’t—aren’t you jumpy,” Fabian remarks distantly, all the normal sass and bite gone from his voice. He blinks as Riz quirks an eyebrow, only slightly manic, racing heart slowly stammering to a normal pace once more. A beat later Fabian sighs, his breath a ghost of shaky mist as he adds, “Is that. Is that what your hair looks like, The Ball?” 

Riz stands, holstering his gun once more. “Well, normally it doesn’t have a rat nesting in it, but, uh. Yeah? I guess?” 

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘hmm’.”

“I know you said, _‘hmm’,_ why hmm?”

Fabian crosses his arms and blushes. “Nothing. You—” he pauses once more, eyes narrowing slightly. Eventually, he spits out, “You look like Timothée Chalamet. Let’s go find my girlfriend,” and turns on his heel to carry on into the mouth of the woods. 

_That can’t be a real person’s name,_ Riz thinks over the _ba-bump_ in his chest, back in full force. He pointedly ignores it and follows Fabian without another word.

Riz isn’t sure at what point he started calling the bad kids his friends, and he’s not sure at what point he started calling Fabian his best friend.

He is, however, pretty confident that he can pin down the moment he realized that perhaps— _perhaps—_ the title of _best friend_ meant something a little different to most people than it did to Riz. He doesn’t—okay, let’s back up a second here. We’re not going call them capital-f _Feelings._ We’re not doing that. There’s still not enough clues that would definitively suggest that Riz might have _Feelings_ for Fabian.

But there’s also not enough clues that would definitively suggest that they’re _not Feelings._ No matter how much he hates it and no matter how weird and nauseous it makes him when he thinks about it too much, Riz is a detective—a _licensed_ detective now, mind you—and that means that neutrality becomes before personal comfort.

So, when a quiet _wait a fucking second_ entered his mind when Gorgug started talking about Zelda that one Summer afternoon, Riz had sucked it up, taken a fantasy Tums, and called Kristen in the name of investigative thoroughness. 

He’d decided pretty quickly that it was a need-to-know basis—and that he was most definitely the only person that needed to know—so he told her that he’d been hired to investigate if some guy from their school might have a crush on one of Penny’s friends. 

(Both identities strictly classified, of course. Listen, it’s _technically_ true.)

“So they’re friends, the two of them,” he said, notepad open on his lap, cross-legged on Jawbone’s couch, exactly one floor up and two apartments over from his own. “According to Penny. I’ve been observing their behaviour and I, uh—confirmed. They seem to be very close friends.”

“Okay.”

“And I—I wanted to get your insight, seeing as you have experience having crushes and being in a relationship and all.”

Kristen nodded, smiling fondly for a moment before tilting her head, hesitant. “Just so you know, gay flirting is like… not the same as straight people flirtng. If Penny’s friend is crushing on a dude, you might be better off asking Gorgug and Zelda for advice.” A beat, then: “But I’m super down to help anyway!”

Riz resisted the urge to snap his pencil in half. “Yeah no, that’s cool.”

Two hours of Kristen waxing poetic about meeting Tracker and crushing on her without fully realizing it at first later, Riz was only more conflicted than when they began. It was deeply, deeply obvious that Kristen and Tracker were in love. Riz didn’t need to be an licensed detective, or even an unlicensed one, to figure that out. And yeah, there were a lot of things, particularly when Kristen was talking about the crush stage of it all, that Riz felt like he could relate to when he thought about him and Fabian—and, perhaps more concerningly, things he could relate to when he thought about Fabian’s behaviours towards _him._ Which, well. 

He didn’t hate the idea. He really didn’t hate it. 

But it wasn’t a one to one comparison. There were a lot of things Kristen talked about that Riz couldn’t possibly relate to less if he tried. He surely wasn’t as concerned with getting his kisses in—or any of the _other stuff_ she’d alluded to—but yeah, maybe Riz got a little more sweaty when he was around Fabian, and felt maybe a larger amount of pride than normal swelling in his chest whenever Fabian reluctantly confirmed that Riz was, in fact, his _best friend,_ too.

And okay, call him dysfunctional—maybe he needs to spend some time on Jawbone’s couch with _Jawbone_ instead of Kristen—but he felt relief in the familiarity of being the odd one out. And as reassuring (and troubling) as that might have been, it still didn’t solve anything, so he’d talked to Adaine next. He had a feeling that if anyone might get it—in the vague, half-truths he was operating with at least—it would be her. They weren’t exactly the same, him and Adaine, but that’s okay. Different people bring different strengths to the case, to the party—but also: he’d reminded himself, also, that people didn’t need to be _useful_ to be good. He didn’t love his friends just because of the things they brought to the table in terms of combat and adventuring, and the evidence very much pointed to them feeling the same of him.

He’s not sure at what point he started knowing this, but he knew it with the utmost certainty: he loved his friends, and they loved him. And that alone is enough, no further investigation needed. And yeah, maybe he still blows off school to go into deep cover sometimes, but Riz knows it, and knows his friends know it: he’s grown a lot since the start of freshman year. 

Which is why he’s fine with spending the prime time of his Saturday morning wading through a sea of fallen leaves, midday sun making its way through the breaks in the canopy above. Riz will likely never admit it, but. It’s nice. It’s really nice. He thinks maybe he gets why his friends keep taking turns making sure he goes outside for a bit. Now, he probably wouldn’t, like, go for a stroll in the woods on his own just for fun—on any normal weekend he’d still much rather be holed up in his room, surrounded by the familiarity of case files and stale coffee and musty air begging for a window to be let open—but right now, this is nice. Pretty much everything in his field of vision is red or orange or yellow, and he’s too captured by how _pretty_ it looks to have the thought that he must be sticking out like a sore thumb—or an easy target—be anything more than a distant note in the back of his mind. The cool air is fresh against his skin, sleeves rolled up to his elbows despite the chill. He doesn’t mind it. His entire body feels alive in the embrace of the forest.

They’ve been walking for maybe a good ten minutes, now, and the only sound shared between them (since the Hair Conversation, the weight of Edgar still grounding Riz from spiraling into going full case-board on the flush of Fabian’s cheeks, the slight stammer in his voice) is the soft crunch of ground underfoot, pleasantly quiet and regular, except for the occasionally ginger sidestep of Fabian avoiding a patch of mud. It’s almost dancerlike, the way he moves. Riz doesn’t look, but he knows that if he did, there would be a grimace on his face.

 _(The things I do for you, Ball,_ Fabian would say. He would shake his head and frown down at the toes of his shoes but he would be fond all the same, eyes darting to gauge Riz’s reaction in the miniscule moments that followed. Riz would lift his hands in defense—Kristen did that, sometimes, whenever she was going back on whatever ridiculous thing she’d just said, whether it was her increasingly ridiculous coffee orders or some reference nobody understood; it always seemed to get a laugh out of at least a couple of their friends—and say, _you’re the one that asked me to come out here with you_ and ruminate over his choice of words until he realized that Fabian was shrugging like _I guess you’re right_ and _I guess I do these things for you. I would happily do them.)_

He doesn’t look. But he does choose to indulge Fabian’s efforts, anyway.

“So, why did you think Aelwyn might be here?”

Fabian blinks, vacant. Then, a beat too late: “Oh. Yes, Aelwyn, my super hot older girlfriend. Well, I—” He scans the path ahead and then the forest on either side of them. Riz follows his gaze, putting on his best inquisitive look. Fabian’s search eventually lands on Riz himself, blinking rapidly. “I, uh, I thought that Edward—”

“Edgar.”

“Ugh, yes, whatever, I thought that maybe _Edgar_ could find her. With his, his little rat nose. Rats can smell.” He says the last part more like a question, and Riz presses his lips tightly together. His best friend’s lapses in common knowledge are often predictable and always ridiculous, but this one is just… confusing? He can’t imagine why being rich would prevent someone from being sure of—or at least _knowing_ —basic animal facts, but, well. _At least it’s not as bad as the time he asked why the Strongtower concierge wouldn’t just deliver us snacks from the vending machine,_ he assures himself, holding back a laugh at the sudden memory. Riz had been rendered nearly speechless, sputtering out an incredulous, _did you see a concierge on your way in, Fabian?_ in response before the rest of the bad kids lost their minds. 

Meanwhile, back in the woods, Fabian’s face falters just slightly, no more than a twitch. “Rats can smell,” he says, firmly, eyebrows furrowed. When Riz remains silent, he huffs a sigh and whines, “Rats can smell! I know rats can smell, The Ball! You—” He scoffs in favour of finishing his thought and storms off for not the first nor the second time that day. 

Riz doesn’t let him get too far. “Okay, so you want—you want Edgar to try and smell if Aelwyn is in the woods?”

Fabian shrugs, somewhere on the line between sheepish and determined as he stares straight ahead, biting back an apparent smile. “Mhm.”

Edgar titters on Riz’s head, disapproving. “Well, I guess that’s better than Fig offering to cast sleep on me—” he clears his throat, mimicking her voice, _“but like, in an emo way. Maybe_ you’re _the nightmare king, Riz!_ She minor illusioned me a crown and everything.” 

“Oh shut up, Ball. That’s—my thing is way better, obviously. And aren’t you the detective? What do _you_ think we should do?” Fabian bumps his shoulder against Riz’s but he doesn’t step back, their arms brushing with each step. 

Riz shivers, and he highly suspects it’s not from the cold. 

“I think…” He makes a show of really giving it a good think, propping his chin up on his hand and everything. He thinks about the heat of Fabian’s arm against his own, the sleeves of his Owlbears jacket rolled up to reveal goosebumps rising over the skin. He thinks about how he doesn’t move to pull the fabric down over his wrists, about how just last weekend he’d complained about the chill of the air conditioning in Basrar’s, shoulders hunched defensively and sleeves balled over the ends of his fists like he was Gorgug’s funhouse mirror twin. He thinks about how the first word that came to his mind was _cute,_ and how he’d shoved another mouthful of Adaine’s abandoned sundae into his mouth so that he wouldn’t say it out loud.

He thinks about how, maybe, he has a little more investigating yet to do, today.

“I think,” he says with a smile and a little shoulder bump of his own, “that we have a lot more woods to explore.”

**Author's Note:**

> just guys bein dudes! feel free to hang in the comments or come drop a line on [tumblr](https://gilears.tumblr.com/)! :^)


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